Chapter Sixteen
It’s easy to schedule time for orgasms.
At least, Bo discovered it was easy to schedule time for them.
She might not always find the time for moisturizing, and she might not always find the time to finish her daily Duolingo lesson (she’d been learning French for two-hundred and twenty-six days, and still didn’t know when to use un or une, or le or la), but she always made time for Max and the orgasms he afforded.
With Max, she was on a hot streak of fourteen days: fourteen days of deliciously building and deliciously aching pleasure, fourteen days of breathless kisses and hard thrusts, fourteen days of sordidly tangled limbs and twisted bedsheets.
No bird avatar could compete with that, no matter how passive-aggressive or borderline threatening the messages they sent.
She’d increased her hours at Ida’s shop again too, in part because she needed the money, but also because she enjoyed the work and it kept her busy.
And lately, she’d needed the distraction. Because when she wasn’t working or tangled up with Max, she was trying and failing to reach Willa.
Bo called her every few days, just to check in, just to hear her voice, even if it was only on answerphone. Willa never picked up though. Never answered any of the rambling and apologetic emails and messages Bo sent her.
Bo missed her best friend. She really, really missed her.
The easy laughter, the ridiculous in-jokes, the way Willa instinctively knew how to make everything in Bo’s life feel just a little less ridiculous.
The current distance between them felt unnatural and wrong, and so Bo worked longer hours, smiling at customers and burying her unhappiness at her friend’s absence in stems and scent and flowers.
Ida noticed Willa’s absence too.
“Where’s your friend? The movie star?” she asked one morning. “I haven’t seen her in a while. Normally, she’s here at least once a week giggling with you in the stock room or pretending to ‘help’ while really just getting in my way.”
“She’s busy, uh, filming,” Bo replied, a little too quickly, and Ida peered at her.
“God, I hope you’re a much better actress than you are a liar.”
Bo blushed. “We argued,” she admitted. “We haven’t spoken in a few weeks.”
“What did you argue about?”
Bo looked down into the bouquet of roses she was arranging. “Just stuff. She thinks I’m making some bad decisions.”
“Mmm. Like your career?”
“Hey,” Bo protested, looking up, but Ida gave an innocent shrug.
“You and I both know what you really should be doing,” Ida intoned, nodding to the bouquet in Bo’s hand. “You’ve got a real eye for arrangements.”
“An eye maybe,” Bo acknowledged easily. “But I still can’t tell half the Latin names apart.”
“Names are the easy part,” Ida replied, waving a hand.
“Anyone can learn those. But the instinct, the sense for balance and knowing what looks right . . . that’s not something that can be taught.
You’re the best young florist I’ve had in here since—” Ida stopped suddenly, an odd look passing over her face.
“Ida?” Bo glanced at her in concern. “Are you okay? If this is a stroke—”
“It’s not a stroke,” Ida scoffed. “I just . . . you should make this more than a stopgap, Bo. You could make a career out of this. You’re already good, but with a little more training, you could be amazing. I could get you started. Help you on your way.”
Bo hesitated, struck by uncertainty. “I’m meant to be an actress though.”
“Who says?”
My mother, Bo had thought, but she didn’t tell Ida that. Instead, she’d simply shrugged, before going back to her roses, quietly wondering if she was chasing the wrong dream.
She didn’t love acting, but she did love flowers, and Ida’s store was the perfect place to indulge in her real passion.
Bo loved it. She loved the fragrant smell that was perpetually in the air; loved the bright colours that decorated the walls; loved the yards and yards of silk-to-the-touch ribbon that she wrapped tightly around green stems or thick leaves.
Most of all, she loved the people. Flowers were a universal gift of love and kindness, and the people who came to the store weren’t interested in anything other than expressing those emotions.
In the years she worked with Ida, Bo had wrapped countless bouquets for birthdays and Bat Mitzvahs, written cards of condolence and cards of joy, and arranged potted plants for new jobs and new parents.
Her work brought her into contact with all the stages of human life, and she felt richer for them.
More than that, her shift began at twelve and finished at eight, which still left her plenty of time for her own plants at home.
And Max. Her job conveniently left plenty of time for him too.
With Max, Bo had reached the ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ stage of justifying her relationship with him.
It was like deciding to go on a diet and then falling headfirst into a vat of ice cream.
Like eating mushrooms only to discover their poison and still whipping up a delicious batch of stroganoff with them anyway.
She knew Max was going to be bad for her; knew he would break her heart, but she couldn’t keep away, and Max — damn him — made it difficult for her by turning out to be an all-round amazing guy.
Every evening that she spent in his company; every late-night rendezvous or early-morning tryst, deepened her understanding of who he was and what made him that way.
She quickly learned that Max suffered from a restless kind of insomnia.
He hated to sleep, hated the quiet. Not that they’d ever slept together — well, not in that way, anyway.
Still, even if he never really spent the night, she could sense his dislike of it.
He was happy to wake her at two or three in the morning, after he’d performed long hours on his piano, tumbling into her summer house and then into her bed with the sweetest of kisses.
He was happy to lay with her afterwards too, talking of everything and nothing.
If Bo began to fall asleep in his arms, if she started to fade out of their conversations, he would wake her gently with yet more kisses and yet more words.
It was only when the sun began to rise that Max seemed happy to rest. When the light of day first crested, he would pull together his things, slinking back up to the house to get in the hours of much-needed sleep he required.
“Why are you such a night owl?” Bo asked him one evening, while Max with eyes closed lay across her legs. She was running a hand through his hair, and he seemed quietly at peace, his breathing even and face slack, warm to the touch under her fingers.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you never want to sleep at night. You work, and then you see me, and you only go home when—”
“Geoffrey’s house isn’t my home,” Max interjected, sitting up, a change to the tempo of his breathing suddenly evident. “It’s not home. It’s just somewhere I’m staying for the summer.”
And you’re just a woman he’s fucking for the summer, Bo’s mind unhelpfully added, and she paused for a moment, swallowing down her discomfort.
Why was she even bothered? She wasn’t supposed to be bothered.
She wasn’t supposed to mind. She knew this was just temporary.
Knew it was just a summer fling. A summer fling she’d been totally onboard with.
“Okay, so, you only go back to Geoffrey’s house—” she paused again as the new reality of her words sank in.
It wasn’t Geoffrey’s house anymore, was it?
It was Max’s, even if he didn’t want it.
“You only go back to the house when the sun comes up,” she tried again.
“Are you scared of the dark or something?”
At that, Max settled against her legs again, and the tempo of his breathing settled once more. “Or something.”
“Secret vampire?” she asked, prodding his cheek gently.
“Tell me: have I ever drawn your blood?”
She smiled at him. “No.”
“Not a vampire then.”
“Werewolf?”
Finally, Max smiled. “Have I ever bitten you?”
She laughed. “Once or twice, actually.”
“In my defence, you didn’t complain at the time.”
“I’m still not complaining now,” she returned, before falling silent, sitting back against her headboard and resuming her gentle exploration of Max’s hair.
For a few minutes they lay in silence, the air soft and gentle around them, the sounds of London muted between Bo’s four walls.
Bo decided Max wasn’t going to answer her question; realized he was going to keep that piece of himself to himself, when suddenly—
“My mum died at night, while I was asleep,” Max said, his words weighted though evenly spoken, and he uttered the words so quietly, so softly, that Bo blinked, her fingers falling still against his scalp.
“What?”
“My mother. She died at night. I was asleep when it happened,” Max said again. “That’s why I don’t like it. Going to sleep, I mean.”
Bo’s stomach lurched. “What happened?”
Max shrugged. “Ruptured brain aneurysm. She had no symptoms. It was completely unexpected.”
“That’s awful. How old were you?”
“Six.” Max’s face stayed blank, as though he were well-practiced in telling this story, numb to his own tragedy.
Lightly, Bo’s fingers began to move through his hair again, and he closed his eyes.
She thought perhaps that was all he would say on the matter; thought that might be all he was willing to share, when his eyes opened once more, settling on her face.
“She died in the winter. Just before Christmas.” He made an ugly and bitter sound, halfway between a huff and a laugh. “She put me to bed as normal, but I had a bad dream. I went to her room and climbed into bed next to her.”
How odd. Bo couldn’t imagine Max — Eton alumni, Oxford graduate and famed concert pianist Max Fitzroy — being a child, and certainly not one who had nightmares.